By: Jimmy Sweeney

The job interview "tell me about yourself question" is the question that the interviewer asks when he or she doesn't know anything else to say. For instance, he or she might ask this question if he or she hasn't gotten a chance to look over your resume yet. While you tell him or her about yourself, he or she can cast an eye over it and learn enough about you to ask more substantive questions later. Alternatively, this question might come from an interviewer who is simply too disinterested, distracted or inexperienced to ask a more directed and useful question. As a candidate, you should recognize this question for what it is. It isn't a sincere, honest, interested way to learn more about you. it is a stalling device to allow the interviewer to get you talking immediately.

As a result, if you are asked the job interview tell me about yourself question, you should be ready to answer it in a way that immediately snaps the interviewer into attention to yourself. The simple, most effective way to do that is to answer it in a way that immediately makes it clear that you are the most qualified and perfect candidate for the job. Obviously, to do this you must first know what the target organization is looking for, and what the ideal
candidate would look like. To create this profile, you must do the necessary research to discover what the duties of the job are, the results that the target job is expected to produce and the attributes or characteristics that the target organization values most. When you have those, you will in essence have created a profile of the perfect candidate.

Answering the Job Interview Tell Me About Yourself Question

When you hear the job interview tell me about yourself question, your answer should more or less be a summary of the ideal candidate profile. Additionally, you should be ready to back up all of your claims to the possession of the ideal characteristics through use of examples, narratives, stories and achievements. Chances are, once you begin telling the interviewer about yourself, and all the things you say are more or less what he or she is hoping to hear, he or she will start paying close attention. At that point, the questioning will get a bit more focused and specific. Instead of just asking to hear more about yourself in general, the interviewer will probably begin asking about specific experience and characteristics.

When he or she moves beyond the job interview tell me about yourself question and starts asking about specific results and achievements, your research will begin to truly pay off. Because you will know what the interviewer is looking for, you will be able to shape your answers in a way that provides the image of yourself as that kind of candidate. To make your
presentation even more appealing, shape and form the situation, actions and results of the stories that you tell to match the realities of the job that your research uncovered. Doing so will allow the interviewer to envision your success on the target job while you tell your story. That vision is worth any amount of information that you might otherwise give in a less memorable and striking manner.

Keyword: job interview tell me about yourself

DID YOU KNOW? There's a new "Secret Career Document" you can quickly and easily customize for your next important job interview that literally forces the hiring manager to picture you filling the position. This simple, powerful formula guarantees you'll automatically stand out from the competition and shoot straight to the top of the "must hire" list for any position … any field. This brand new strategy was created by Jimmy Sweeney, one of California's top marketing professionals. To discover Jimmy's breakthrough "secret" go to: Amazing Job Interview Secret